Audiobook Mini Reviews: YA Dystopia and Fantasy

December 5, 2015

Legend by Marie Lu

I’d heard a lot of great things about this series so I was pretty keen when I saw the first in the series on my library’s audiobook list. It was a disappointment. If you’ve read any YA Dystopia in recent years, chances are you’ll be able to take a stab at make some pretty accurate guesses about the plot from the blurb. Shining light in the Republic’s academy, June, is devastated when her brother is murdered. The country’s most wanted criminal, Day, becomes the prime suspect and June launches off on a state-sponsored under-cover mission to track him down and exact some revenge. When their paths cross, they realise that (shocker) everything with the Republic is not quite as it seems…

I struggled to find the story very compelling because I felt like I’d already read it. I finished the book and felt as though all of the detail had been forgotten somewhere – there’s a great ramble about “the Colonies” and how the Republic hates them. Problem is, it’s difficult for me to really get into this Republic v. Colonies struggle if it isn’t fully described. What are the Colonies? Why does the Republic hate them so much? What’s the political position of the Colonies? I haven’t a clue. It felt a little bit as though it was relying on the atmosphere that pervades the genre rather than creating any of its own; you’re lead to believe that you hate the Republic not because you’re really shown why (at least at first) but because you know that’s who you’re supposed to hate.

The characters are also pretty two dimensional and if it hadn’t been for the fact that June and Day’s chapters were narrated by different actors in the audiobook, I’d have struggled to tell them apart. The romance is shallow and uninspiring. All in all, I felt like as a first book, it’s too light. There isn’t enough time spent building the world or developing the characters and I don’t plan on picking up the next one to fill in the blanks because I kind of don’t care about them.

Rating: 2.5 out of 5 stars for being a passable re-hash of the ‘Big Bad Republic Tramples Poor’ trope. It doesn’t offer anything new or particularly interesting but it isn’t appalling enough to inspire any major ranting. Just ok.

The Abhorsen Trilogy by Garth Nix

This is another series that I’d heard wonderful things about. The concept of the series is pretty great – Sabriel is adopted as a baby by the Abhorsen, a bell-wielding necromancer, and sent off to Ancelstierre as a child to learn charter magic and grow up away from her death-walking father. When her father goes missing, the first book sees Sabriel returning to the Old Kingdom and setting off to find him with a tremendously sarcastic talking cat. The later books are set about 20 years after the first and follow younger, new characters as they face down an impending apocalypse.

One of my main problems with the series overall was that the books are quite repetitive, which gives it away as epic fantasy for slightly younger readers. Nix has gone to the trouble of creating a wonderful magic system for the necromancers that is centred around bells, each of which has a different name and power. What was frustrating was that every time a bell was used, I was treated to a run-down of its characteristics and abilities. Which was fine the first couple of times but by the end of the third book, felt a bit worn. The characters are also very much young adults. They can be whiny and there’s a lot of growing into powers and learning about who they are and who they can be etc. etc. It works well in the first book but is much less dexterously handled in the latter two.

I did like the series. I might not sound like I did, but I did. It’s quite gritty and focusses a lot on Death (which is a place with levels that the Abhorsen can walk through that I wish had been featured more) and the undead. It’s dark in places and worth reading if you’re patient and the odd bout of self-pity/whining. Maybe they’d be better read with a few books in between to break them up and give you chance to forget some of the facts that you’ll be reminded about later on.

Rating: 3 out of 5 stars for having some great ideas and concepts that were just lacking in their execution for me. It also loses stars for having a talking dog (“the Disreputable Dog”) feature heavily in the second and third books because it is a) is a talking dog, which is a bit insipid and didn’t appeal to me because I’m just not a dog person and b) has far too many hidden powers that conveniently manifest themselves when the going gets tough and the characters need an easy out.

Shiver by Maggie Stiefvater

Oof. Sorry, friends. This set of mini reviews isn’t the most positive I’ve ever written! I think that maybe YA fantasy and I need to take a little break…

This offering is about Grace, a teenager living in Mercy Falls who has a frankly unhealthy preoccupation with a wolf with yellow eyes who lives in the woods behind her house. One day she meets a boy, Sam, who has hauntingly familiar yellow eyes and…guessed where this is going yet? Yep, this is another book that’s pretty predictable. And a bit annoying.

The twist on the usual werewolf day/night shifts was interesting – these werewolves get to be human while its warm and turn into wolves for the winter. Eventually, they run out of summers and turn into wolves forever. Unfortunately for Grace, this is Sam’s last summer as a human and so the lovers have to race to find a way to stay together. Perhaps I’m a cynic but I really struggle to buy into a relationship that’s based on years of Grace having watched Sam as a wolf. There are some minor moral quandaries along the way but the plot is really just Grace and Sam canoodling and trying to plan a life together in their second month together.

My sister loves this series so it could be just me but my overwhelming feelings is just a world of ‘meh’.

Rating: 2 out of 5 stars for making me feel like I was wading through tropes. Cross-species relationship, parents that are conveniently always busy and out of the main characters’ way, InstaLove (because I’m sorry but I will not believe that meaningful ‘getting to know each other’ time can happen while one of the parties is a wolf) and high school friendships straining under the weight of one person’s new obsession with The One.